According to Grigoryan, during the meeting with US National Security Advisor to President Biden Jake Sullivan and Assistant to the President of Azerbaijan Hikmet Hajiyev, the parties discussed the terms of the peace treaty, i.e., the signing of the treaty by the end of the year. Grigoryan also said that an agreement had been reached to carry out the delimitation process by the end of the year. The peace treaty and the delimitation are interrelated.
We asked Hikmet Hajiyev, Assistant to the President of Azerbaijan and Head of the Foreign Policy Affairs Department of the Presidential Administration, to comment on these statements by Armen Grigoryan.
What can you say about the latest statement by Armen Grigoryan, Secretary of the Security Council of Armenia, concerning the talks held on September 27, 2022 in Washington on the initiative of Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor to the President of the United States?
First of all, I would like to thank Jake Sullivan once again for hosting these talks. We welcome the recent efforts by US officials to contribute to the normalization of Armenia-Azerbaijan relations. I would also like to stress that the talks in Washington were held in strict compliance with the pre-agreed agenda following the principles of the Brussels format. The talks covered the following areas:
– Peace Treaty.
– Delimitation of borders.
– Restoration of communications.
– Humanitarian issues, including the situation of missing persons and the mine problem.
The talks held in Washington and elsewhere adhered to the Brussels agenda and focused exclusively on the peaceful settlement. It was decided in Washington that negotiations should be conducted with a specific time frame set for the conclusion of a peace treaty. In this regard, the draft peace treaty itself was presented in advance at the meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers in Geneva.
I must emphasize in particular that the draft included provisions that are standard for this kind of agreement on the normalization of relations between two countries. In particular, the peace treaty implies mutual recognition of sovereignty and territorial integrity, non-interference in internal affairs, etc.
As President Ilham Aliyev pointed out, if Armenia demonstrates political determination, a peace treaty can be signed by the end of this year. The signing of a peace treaty between our countries will undoubtedly have a positive impact on the overall geopolitical environment in the region.
Our position on the issue of delimitation is that this process should be carried out without any preconditions. That is, to us, an approach in which the result of the commissions’ work is known in advance is unacceptable. The experience of discussions of borders between states in international practice, including the experience of negotiations on the issue between Azerbaijan and neighboring countries, shows that delimitation is a very complicated process, which involves long and intensive negotiations. The most important point here is determining the initial provisions upon which the negotiations will be based.
As you know, we are talking about more than a thousand kilometers of non-delimited border between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and a part of this border was under Armenian occupation for almost 30 years. During the negotiations, the Azerbaijani side also raised the issue of the seven villages of Gazakh District and one Nakhchivan village, which remain under occupation to this day. Furthermore, in contravention of the trilateral statement of November 10, the remaining Armenian troops have not yet been completely withdrawn from those areas of Azerbaijan where Russian peacekeepers are now temporarily deployed.
I regret to say that Armenia is not fulfilling its obligations to open communications in violation of the provisions of the trilateral statement. The issue of ensuring the safety of travel to Nakhchivan from the East Zangezur region of Azerbaijan is still unresolved. Azerbaijan constantly raises this issue in all negotiations as well.
As for the humanitarian aspect, we, for our part, expect Armenia to cooperate with Azerbaijan to shed light on the fate of some 3,900 of our compatriots who went missing during the First Karabakh War. Unfortunately, Armenia refuses to provide Azerbaijan with information about the locations of the mass graves.
Armen Grigoryan also mentioned the issue of “establishing an international mechanism to discuss the rights and security of Karabakh Armenians”. How would you comment on that?
As President Ilham Aliyev stressed, the Karabakh conflict has been resolved. The causes of the conflict were Armenia’s military aggression against Azerbaijan and the fact of Armenian occupation of Azerbaijan’s lands. The UN Security Council resolutions demanded that the occupation be ended, but Armenia did not comply with this demand, and those who were engaged in mediation failed to do their job. As a result, Azerbaijan was forced to end Armenia’s military occupation and liberate its lands on its own.
The issue of ensuring the rights and security of the Armenians living in the Karabakh region is an internal affair of Azerbaijan. As the head of our state said, the Armenians living in Karabakh are citizens of our country. Both in Brussels and Washington, representatives of Azerbaijan emphasized that Baku would not discuss issues pertaining to the sovereign rights of our country with any third party. The issue of rights and security of Karabakh Armenians will be resolved under the Constitution of Azerbaijan, laws and international commitments of our state. As a responsible member of the international community, after a certain period of time Azerbaijan may inform international partners about the ongoing dialogue with its citizens, but only as a display of good will and an example of transparency.
In Washington, our delegation stated that Azerbaijan, in accordance with its international commitments, regularly submits various reports to the UN and other organizations. These reports reflect the Azerbaijani government’s efforts aimed, for example, at ensuring the rights of ethnic minorities. In the future, these reports will include actions aimed at ensuring the rights of the Armenian residents of Karabakh.
In other words, there is not and cannot be any question of establishing any international “mechanism” designed to control the rights and security of the Armenian residents of the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. Sovereignty is the red line of our state’s policy, and international partners should treat this just position with understanding and respect.
In conclusion, I would like to point out that we regard distorting the nature of the negotiations, speaking from the position of personal considerations, using all kinds of manipulations and juggling of definitions as unacceptable.
Translated from Haqqin.az
